Recherche économique et analyse des politiques commerciales

WTO obligations, including notification requirements, and specific accession commitments are complex. Most of them become effective from the date of WTO membership. From a centralized accession process, new members now suddenly have to adapt to a decentralized WTO procedures and participate in parallel in its multiple bodies. The twenty years of post-accession experience of Article XII members suggests that many, especially least-developed countries (LDCs), have faced major implementation challenges until a system of post-accession support was introduced recently. This chapter reviews the Post-Accession Support Platform (PASP), a framework developed by the WTO Secretariat to facilitate the transition from acceding economy to full-fledged WTO member. The PASP offers individual post-accession implementation strategies, technical assistance and capacity-building, best international practices, a dedicated website and internal Secretariat procedures that can be used to support new WTO members. The chapter reviews the use of the PASP by two recently acceded LDCs – Afghanistan and Liberia – and finds early signs of improved effectiveness in the WTO post-accession transition process.

La définition des ressources naturelles donnée dans la sous-section 1 est suffisante pour bon nombre d’analyses, mais une définition statistique plus précise est nécessaire pour traiter de façon cohérente les données sur les flux commerciaux, analysées dans la sous-section 2. Dans le cas des produits non exportés, une conception plus large des ressources naturelles est nécessaire. Cet appendice donne des précisions sur les différentes définitions possibles des ressources naturelles, puis présente des tableaux récapitulatifs du commerce par pays, ainsi que des cartes illustrant divers aspects de l’offre et du commerce des ressources naturelles.

The starting point for this study is that appropriately designed and sequenced trade liberalization measures and a well crafted set of trade rules can make a positive contribution to growth and development. But the extent of that contribution also depends on other policies. The notion of coherence has been deployed in this study to characterize a situation in which relevant policies are pulling together in the same direction. In a world of multiple policy objectives and priorities, and one where no consensus exists on the ideal policy set, the concept of coherence cannot be given operational precision – rather, it is indicative of the reality that policies are inter-dependent, and that poor policy or neglect in one area can undermine the efficacy of efforts in another. Coherence cannot be uniquely defined unless a set of policy objectives is formally established and the objectives ranked in terms of priorities that indicate how trade-offs are to be made when these are necessary. A precise specification of a fully coherent policy set would also identify the exact nature and timing of all relevant government interventions. Any such undertaking is well beyond the scope of this study. Instead, coherence in this context simply refers to the idea that mutually supportive approaches in related areas of policy are likely to produce greater harmony between intent and outcome. Coherence as discussed here is a matter of degree, and more coherence means that the benefits of sound trade policies are greater than they would be without supportive policies in other areas.

This chapter posits that leaving WTO accession in the hands of trade experts or commercial specialists within the acceding government can be unwise. Accession to the WTO goes far beyond the remit of the trade, commerce and/or foreign ministry, and even beyond the responsibilities of the minister. In order to conclude an accession, what is required of the acceding government will involve many, if not most, ministries, call upon governmental agencies and other authorities and may very well include both regional and municipal levels of government. The acceding government must expect to make hard policy choices. Poorer developing countries are likely to come across particular challenges and solutions. Given the demanding nature of this process, it is important that the acceding government is entirely convinced, before embarking upon the process, that it has the right motivations and expectations in wishing to become a member of the WTO.

Women and Trade: The Role of Trade in Promoting Gender Equality is a joint report by the World Bank and the World Trade Organization (WTO). Maria Liungman and Nadia Rocha from the World Bank and José-Antonio Monteiro and Roberta Piermartini from the WTO coordinated the report. The team is grateful for the guidance and support of our World Bank colleagues—Caroline Freund, Global Director, Trade, Investment and Competitiveness; William Maloney, Chief Economist for Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions; the World Bank gender group under the leadership of Caren Grown, Global Director Gender; and Antonio Nucifora, Practice Manager Trade and Regional Integration Unit—and our WTO colleagues Aegyoung Jung, Chief Legal Advisor to the Director-General; and Robert Koopman, Chief Economist and Director of the Economic Research and Statistics Division.

This chapter takes stock of the recent academic literature on accessions. It focuses only on the analytical work published since 2000 in books, academic journals and working papers by key WTO scholars across the world. These contributions are related to the procedural, legal, economic and institutional aspects of WTO accessions, and to the proposals for their reform. Country-specific studies, research on the impact of accessions on individual industries and reports on accessions by national and international institutions are not included.

La présente section examine comment la coopération commerciale internationale peut aider les gouvernements du monde entier à exploiter les technologies numériques et à saisir les nouvelles possibilités commerciales qu’elles créeront pour les entreprises, grandes et petites. La section D.1 résume les principales possibilités et les principaux défis qui découlent de l’expansion du commerce numérique. La section D.2 donne des exemples des politiques mises en place par les gouvernements pour tirer parti de ces possibilités et relever ces défis. La section D.3 examine ensuite la question de savoir si et comment la coopération internationale peut aider les gouvernements à bénéficier des gains du commerce numérique, à faire face aux défis et, en même temps, à atteindre leurs objectifs de politique publique aujourd’hui et dans l’avenir.

En la presente sección se examina la reglamentación internacional del comercio de recursos naturales. Primero, se hace una exposición general del marco jurídico de la OMC y un breve examen del encaje de los recursos naturales en ese marco. En esta sección no se pretende hacer un estudio exhaustivo de todas las normas de la OMC que puedan estar relacionadas con el comercio de recursos naturales, sino sólo de aquellas que sean especialmente pertinentes para este tipo de comercio, considerando si responden a las características más destacadas de los sectores de recursos naturales, y en qué medida. En esta sección también figura una selección de acuerdos internacionales que reglamentan el comercio de recursos naturales y un examen de su relación con las disciplinas de la OMC. Por último se tratan en particular cierto número de cuestiones planteadas en este sector que son o podrían ser pertinentes para la cooperación internacional y el sistema multilateral de comercio.

This volume is a joint project of the International Labour Office and the Secretariat of the World Trade Organization. The International Chamber of Commerce Research Foundation provided funding, for which we would like to express our appreciation. This work follows up on two prior joint publications by the ILO and the WTO Secretariats – a review of the literature on trade and employment in 2007 and a report on the linkages between trade and informal employment in 2009.

Estimated at US$36 billion and employing over four million people, the Indian health care sector is one of the largest service sectors in the economy today. With a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15 per cent, the Indian health care sector is expected to reach US$280 billion by 2020. A 2003 report titled India’s New Opportunity: 2020, prepared jointly by the All India Management Association, Boston Consulting Group and the Confederation of Indian Industries, predicts that over 40 million new jobs and US$200 billion increased revenues are expected to be generated by the Indian services sector by 2020, and the health care sector will play an important role in generating these jobs and revenues (AIMA/BCG 2003). Hence, this sector is predicted to grow rapidly and is seen to have considerable potential due to the growing demand for health care services in India. The reasons are many, including rising incomes, a growing propensity to spend on health care, an emergence of lifestyle-related diseases, and demographics.

Natural resources represent a significant and growing share of world trade, and properly managed, can provide a variety of products that contribute greatly to the quality of human life. They also present particular challenges for policy makers.

For many developing states which have experienced a substantial decline in their share of world trade and global value added, Aid for Trade (AFT) initiatives have become a critical source of support in a context where these countries suffer from both market and government failure. As such, the key issue is whether AFT programmes, as currently configured, are the right policy instrument or set of instruments to address the weak participation of developing countries in global trade and global value chains. In many regards, the problem relates to an overdependence on a narrow range of exports (e.g. agricultural and resource-based commodities and low value-added manufacturing goods and services) that are faced with declining terms of trade, tariff progressivity and diminishing economic returns (Reinert, 2007). One of the key criticisms that has emerged is that the focus of AFT donors and relevant implementing agencies has been heavily weighted on the architecture of trade support programmes and not sufficiently on industrial upgrading and enterprise development (Cirera, 2009).

Trade can be more complicated than we think. What happens when two countries define the same product differently or if they set out different criteria to check that a product is safe? Let us think, for example, of the inconvenience as a traveller in havin 15 different types of electrical outlet plugs in the world, or the enormous infrastructure investment required for train cargo and passengers to travel across the border between two countries that have different track gauge. Then consider the benefits of being able to plug in and use a USB key with any computer worldwide or the advantages of standard cables, standard operating systems or the standard size of a credit card.

The expansion of global output and trade gained considerable momentum in the second half of 2003 resulting in an annual average increase of world GDP and world merchandise exports of 2.5 per cent and 4.5 per cent respectively. These changes represent stronger than expected improvements when compared with the preceding year although trade growth remained below the average rate recorded in the 1990s. These annual results were negatively affected by a combination of unusual, temporary factors and longer-term structural weaknesses in a number of major economies (in particular the state of the banking system in Japan and the labour markets in Western Europe). One of the influencing temporary factors was the emergence of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in East Asia. Although SARS remained a limited epidemic relative to malaria and the acquired immunity deficiency syndrome (AIDS), it had a dramatic short-term impact on the movement of people and on the tourism industry in the region. The build up of tensions resulting in the military conflict in Iraq weakened consumer and business confidence in many regions in the first quarter of the year. In OECD countries the composite leading (business) indicator hit its lowest level in March 2003 then displayed a trend increase from May 2003 onwards. The major stock markets showed a similar development, dropping sharply until March but recovering thereafter and then expanding sharply until the end of the year.

El progreso tecnológico ha moldeado siempre la estructura del sistema de comercio mundial. La tecnología no es solo un factor determinante de los costos del comercio, sino que también define qué productos se pueden comercializar a través de las fronteras e influye en las tendencias de la ventaja comparativa.

Le Rapport sur le commerce mondial 2009 porte essentiellement sur certaines mesures contingentes auxquelles les Membres de l’OMC peuvent recourir lors de l’ importation et de l’exportation de marchandises. Le cadre juridique de ces mesures est beaucoup moins développé dans le domaine du commerce des services, mais il est également examiné.